The Return Of The Entusiasm Gap

Republicans are motivated more than ever to vote in order to "punish" President Obama, Democrats, and the people who voted for them over six years of perceived slights (and Obamacare working).  Democrats, not so much...

There's a number in the new Associated Press-GFK national poll that should put a scare into Democrats on the ballot this November.

The number is 14. That's the percentage point difference between those who say they favor a Republican-controlled Congress (51 percent) and those who want Democratic-controlled one, among people who say they are strongly interested in politics. (Among the broader electorate, the Republican lead is far less consequential on this so-called "generic ballot" question with 37 percent choosing a GOP-controlled Congress while 36 percent opt for a Democratic one.) According to AP's Jennifer Agiesta "in January, this group was about evenly split, with 42 percent preferring Democrats and 45 percent the Republicans."

Guess who votes in midterms -- and particularly the second midterm of a president's tenure? Yup -- people who are "strongly interested" in politics. And therein lies the Democrats' problem.

And, it's not just the AP-GFK poll that shows a disparity of intensity between Democrats and Republicans. A GW Battleground poll showed that 64 percent of Republicans are "extremely likely" to vote while 57 percent of Democrats said the same. In a CBS News-New York Times poll 81 percent of Republican registered voters said they would "definitely" vote in November versus 68 percent of Democrats.

If this remains true in November, then there's going to be serious problems for us.  Unless you think the solution to whatever problem you have with President Obama and the Democrats is "more Republicans in Congress" then we need to vote in November.

And yes, I'm going to keep harping on this for the next 7 months.